


I Dreamed

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied Rape/Non-con, M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War breaks out after Van and his Generals are defeated. It seems, even for those who wish it, living beyond the Score's direction maybe ultimately be impossible.</p><p>Technically a songfic - uses lyrics from ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from Les Miserables as a frame for the story.<br/>Warnings: Major Character Death, Implied Non-Con<br/>Pairing: Guy Cecil/Sync the Tempest</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dreamed

_I dreamed a dream of time gone by -_  
_When there was hope, and life worth living._

The battle raged around him, them, the world, neverending and all encompassing and it ravaged the lands like nothing else could. People died in droves, lost in the maelstrom created by the opposing forces - there were no safe places, not anymore. The streets were paved in blood and corpses, soldiers and civilians, for no one could be spared. After all, what if they missed the opportunity to kill the instigator?

No one knew anymore. The war had been going on for so long that most had forgotten who started it - there were arguments for a former Commandant, others for a redhaired royal, still others for groups and not individuals. No one knew, and no one cared. Roving gangs took to the streets, and when the soldiers did not kill, they took care of the job for them, ‘saved them the trouble’.

Even he did not know why he fought anymore, why every day he bothered to get up off the ground and leave whatever place he had managed to catch an hour or two of sleep in. He was so tired, so blasted exhausted of running and killing and fighting and waiting, inevitably, for the blade that would go wide and gut him, or the bullet that would pierce his heart.

He was alone anyway.

His blond hair was matted to the side of his head, rusted and almost brown from the sprays of strangers’ blood and his own. He cut a path forward - because what else could he do? - and kept moving, never in the same direction for long. He remembered friends in every face of the dead that he passed, and even found himself lingering when he saw a shade of brown hair, so long and so familiar, or a red… Lorelei forbid… a red the color of sunset and so vibrant but always just a little off.

There was one color, though, that was one he prayed almost more than any other he would never see. He hoped he wouldn’t see that lithe body buried beneath other bodies, lifeless eyes open and mouth slack. He prayed, though he knew it likely went unheard.

Still, each footstep continued, each cut of his blade finished its stroke, each thought numbed until he could keep going.

_I dreamed that love would never die,_  
_I dreamed that God would be forgiving._

Why had he ever thought there was room for forgiveness? Why had he thought fighting like this would mean anything? Hell, he still agreed with half of what he had been taught, maybe more than that, and living beyond it, beyond bleeding every single day and giving his life bit by bit for everyone that he had looked down on and those who saw him for all that he was: a replica, broken and useless and beyond worthless.

He stumbled and caught himself on the corner of a building, his face and hair hidden in the thick confines of a hood stained and dirty. His hands, encrusted with dirt and dust, clenched and unclenched as he steadied himself. He was so tired but laying down would be the same as dying.

Still he remembered a time when he had been briefly happy. Imprisoned, of all times, a chance to learn he really was his own self, time to talk to others who had spent so long trying to convince him he had nothing to prove, not as Van had taught him. The blond, especially, had talked with him, sometimes for hours at a time, sitting just outside his cell. He was a listener, someone the prisoner hated at first, and their first conversations had consisted only of the prisoner screaming at the listener.

His memory was fuzzy, but as time went on, as the war raged and worsened, higher ups figured he was better spent as a resource than a prisoner, and where he would have one time sabotaged them all, watched and laughed as they fell, he offered legitimate advice and was… respected.

Stupid, stupid blond. He had fought as hard as anyone, harder, and put himself in so much danger. When the replica had seen him nearly die time after time, and each time his heart was squeezed harder, he had lost his temper again with the once-listener outside his cell.

He had had someone, someone he actually cared about, and for a time…

For a time, he had hoped he could eventually find peace.

But there was no forgiveness for one like him, and he knew this with every beat of his heart. For all he knew, the reason he kept going was gone too.

Hope was a poisonous ally.

_Then I was young, and unafraid,_  
_And dreams were made, and used, and wasted._

_There was no ransom to be paid,_  
_No song unsung, no wine untasted._

His cracked lips managed a smile as his sword clattered to the ground and he rested for the first time in days. He lay his head against the wall, his legs giving and his back pressing against the building. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the warmth of a campfire and a body curled into his own, a head balanced carefully on his shoulder and a breath stirring the hairs on his neck. They were surrounded by wilderness, by ligers howling in the woods and battle not far out, but in these moments beneath the star-studded sky, they were at peace.

He missed the smirk on those lips, the curve of cheeks that had not seen enough nutrition, the feel of a body made of muscle and memory and strength, the dark chuckles that made the humor all the sweeter. Those thoughts kept him going when his shoulders screamed and his body broke, and each step brought him closer or farther, but at least it was movement.

He could not just call his name, a name that to many was synonymous with this war when they knew so little and kept to their ignorance as much as they wanted to cling to their Score. He did not agree with everything the green haired replica had done, far from it, but he could understand, possibly better than anyone else.

He wished they had never agreed to separate. He wished they were still running together, hand in hand, artes and sword paired in perfect harmony. Alone this journey was far worse, but the thought that he really could be alone completely, that the other half of his heart was dead, was too much to bear. There was so much left they had to do together, for the precious replica to experience that the blond swordsman wanted to give him.

At some point he got back up, lifted his sword, placed one foot in front of the other. He had to cover his mouth and nose now; disease was spreading quickly. A mirthless laugh escaped his dry throat at the thought that maybe the Score was coming true.

_But the tigers come at night,_  
_With their voices soft as thunder,_  
_As they tear your hopes apart,_  
_As they turn your dream to shame._

Sync had screamed himself hoarse, his voice broken long before and his body a shattered mess. There was not a part of him that did not hurt, that did not feel the ghostly touch or cruel twist of a stranger’s hand. Nails scored gashes in his flesh, leaving bright red blood, more that he could not afford to lose. They would kill him only after they had had their fun.

Parts of him were numb to the abuse, others were crying out with indignity. No one, replica or otherwise, deserved this debasement, a joke to be used and left and picked up only again with boredom or twisted desire. His eyes were dry but cheeks stained with tears that he had stubbornly refused to let fall.

He couldn’t even remember being jumped.

Though his arms would not move, though his body could not, he tried to free himself over and over much to the amusement of his captors. He didn’t even know if these beasts were soldiers or one of the random rogue groups hounding the streets. Nor did he especially care. He looked up at the next to approach, and let his head fall, an arte on his breath as a hand caressed mockingly in his hair and stroked along his neck.

Not again.

Blood sprayed in beautiful arcs and he screamed again, his body rebelling, his fonons separating, his final attack ricocheting around him and in him and - 

He cried again, and the screams could not balm his broken heart.

_He slept a summer by my side,_  
_He filled my days with endless wonder,_  
_He took my childhood in his stride,_  
_But he was gone when autumn came._

Guy coughed and wiped a shaking hand across his mouth, his breaths harsh pants and his legs shaking. Daath had fallen, the cathedral shattered, the Oracle HQ little more than rubble. He carefully picked his way across the once proud walls of the city and tried to avoid seeing Hod all over again. Soldiers were busy rescuing the residents they could, while the newest Fon Master herself and her dearest assistant barked orders and worked with those who were no longer a part of this world.

Cruelty, it seemed, had not lessened in the least. War had made men’s hearts all the colder, closed off, and Guy could only wish life were as it had been, before war had stolen everything he had gained.

Warm, somehow delicate fingers squeezing around his, lips pressed firmly to his own, hands teaching a tale as old as time itself to hands unfamiliar with the story, and words whispered in stolen breaths and stolen homes. He had wanted to teach someone he loved so much everything wonderful about the world, and all he’d seen was the despair as they realized little wonderful was left.

The day they had separated was the day Guy knew he had ripped himself in two. A portion of himself would not return while Sync was gone. He had watched at the crossroads as Sync had stepped away, an unspoken promise passing between them in the breaths that said more than words ever possibly could. His fingers slipped from the other’s, bare of gloves for once, and their eyes met for as long as they could stand there.

Then the shadows took Sync, and Guy turned to the light leading to Grand Chokmah, and it was the last they saw of each other.

He still wished he had actually said “I love you” at least once in words.

_And still I dream he’d come to me,_  
_And we would live the years together,_  
_But there are dreams that cannot be,_  
_And there are storms we cannot weather._

Someone was wetting his forehead with a cool rag. Someone else was prying his hand open. Cool fonic power brushed his skin and disintegrated, as useless as a broken sword, and he almost laughed at the thought that something could be as useless as him. He barely recalled who he was anymore, that there were voices he did not recognize flowing around him and the ground was moving under him.

Rain pelted the outside of canvas, and he smelled it on the wet grass, and he breathed it in and found the comfort he was so desperate for there, just out of reach. Guy was not here. More than likely, Guy was dead, just one more body in a pile. 

A hand touched his back, and his entire body tensed, sending an inferno of pain through every nerve. One of those voices, female and quiet and gentle, tried to bring peace to a shattered boy who had wanted only a little more time with someone who cared for him, and for whom he was capable of caring. It was selfish, just as much of him was, but he didn’t care.

“Poor child…”

He did laugh then at the pity in her voice, and he shook, and the hysterics were quieted only by the falling rain and the smell of sweet chemicals passed under his nose.

_I had a dream my life would be_  
_So different from this hell I’m living,_  
_So different now from what it seems -_

A small sanctuary in a world falling apart - a city called Hope in a place where another might have stood. Guy aided where he could, for once not a soldier and instead a builder, a painter, shoulders to ride on for a child. He smiled, he did not bleed, he healed, all except the heart that remained so broken.

The war had not ended - he doubted it ever would - but here, he could see a life worth rebuilding. The people dreamed of a time of peace and choice, where the Score would not dictate their every move and kindness would reach them all. It was a fool’s dream, but one Guy wanted to believe in with everything he had left.

He watched the wagons roll in, carrying precious supplies and more precious cargo. The wounded, the infirm, the elderly, the sick - so many, and so little space, but others would make room. Homes would be opened to those without anything, and new families would form. Guy had seen it happen before; here, there was a portion of humanity left.

Brushing his hair from his forehead and holding a hand up to protect his eyes, he glanced the back end of the procession just as the gates to the outer wall - hastily built, but it had withstood attack thus far - closed. He smiled at the warmth of the people who gathered to help and began to turn away.

A glimpse of green. Dirty, and in desperate need of cleaning, but green, a green he knew could smell like apples or sundried grass, skin that he expected to be as tough as the muscle beneath but was so smooth in his fingers, hands and a body strong enough to withstand abuse and creation and destruction over and over again.

“No,” he whispered, and the word was eaten by the same damned world.

He didn’t know how he got from his station to the wagon, or that the men and women in the back of the cart were startled by his sudden appearance. He didn’t care. His gloves, torn from his hands by fumbling and teeth, landed with a soft puff of air on the ground and he reached for the cheek almost unrecognizable under all that dirt.

He recognized it.

“Sync,” he gasped. He didn’t bother hiding the tears. Not a soul judged him for it.

In the place of the vibrant soul Guy loved lay an empty shell, eyes closed and chest just barely rising and falling. He heard in the whispers of the wind from the others in the cart - they had tried to take care of him. Tried to save him. Did everything they could with meager supplies and dwindling water. He nodded numbly, words of thanks spilling from his lips, and he reached and choked as the body flinched away. Fire spread beneath his fingertips, clammy skin speaking  _infection_ and  _poison_ so loudly that he almost heard them in an actual voice.

“Sync, it’s me. It’s Guy.”

No response, not even a head turn. Guy lifted the worn, shaking body from the back, wrapped in rags and blankets, dirty and soiled and hurt but - but  _alive_! However faint his hope, he had to keep it. It was all that kept him going.

He walked passed allies, people who stopped and tried to speak but found when they opened their mouths, no words would leave them. He walked passed those he normally would have seen, friends that he had found on his journey while his other half went on completely alone, and heard perhaps Tear or Natalia or Luke call him, whisper some word or some comfort. It all fell on deaf ears.

The home he had was small, a single floor, and he had once thought of a place like this to live with the young man in his arms. They would have raised a family, or simply lived out with pets or both, and they would have been together, protecting and loving each other until the end.

He lay Sync on his bed, hesitated, and eventually stripped the filthy cloth from the other’s body. He dared not think of the implications of what he saw, for if he did, he was not certain he could remain upright. Carrying the weight of the young man should not have been so easy, nor should it have been so simple to place Sync in the cold bath water and clean too pliant limbs.

Guy no longer knew if he was crying or if he was sobbing, or if he was just speaking Sync’s name while he watched the rise and fall of that scarred chest. When he lifted Sync again, it was with a whimper, though who it came from he did not know, and he lay the pale body on his bed with the best sheet he could find covering evidence laid into flesh.

He burned the tattered remains of cloth, watched it die in the flames of the fireplace, and did all he could between water and broth to fill Sync’s belly. Not once did Sync wake, not even when Guy forced the bitter herbs down his throat, herbs that would heal, he had been told, now that gels were gone.

Sleep claimed him, and he dreamed, and when he woke to find his dreams a false reality he felt the sob catch in his throat again.

But there was one similarity: Sync’s green eyes were open. And they were staring at him.

“Found you,” he whispered. The words rattled in his throat like his breaths, each one more stuttered than the next. When he blinked, his eyes hesitated to reopen. Guy kept his own locked on Sync’s struggling face. He brushed his fingers over Sync’s cheek and wiped the tears away, tears Sync could not afford to cry.

“Love you,” Sync added, and his eyes closed, and this time did not reopen.

“Sync - “

“Thank you.”

The second word was choked, half caught on the last breath as if to hold onto it for as long as he could, to share this secret that had been inside their hearts for so long and spoken through action rather than word. It sounded strangely more like ‘Goodbye’ ringing in the stuttering silence.

Lunging forward, Guy grabbed Sync’s fingers, the side of Sync's face cradled in Guy's other hand, and felt the fluttering pulse finally stop fluttering. He nearly slapped Sync to try and wake him, to shake his unmoving body and get him to stop playing this prank - it was no longer funny, come on, Sync, we need to get ready, get going, get - 

Guy let his face rest against Sync’s shoulder and wept, holding that body as tightly as he could, wanting to destroy the monsters that had hurt Sync so, wanting to burn the world down so it could feel a fraction of his pain. Someone tried to pull him from the body, and he struggled with a cry of fury or agony, he couldn’t be sure, until that same someone forced Guy’s arms around a bare midriff to grip at the coattails behind.

“I’m sorry,” said Luke, and he gripped Guy to him, and Guy could not face the reality before him, not now, not after everything.

He held onto Luke - his life depended on it - and screamed his anger, his frustration, his loss, until all he could whisper into the unforgiving world was, “I didn’t get to say I love you… I didn’t get to say goodbye…” 

_…Now life has killed the dream I dreamed._


End file.
